Expert's Rating

OVERALL

BUILD QUALITY

FEATURES

VALUE FOR MONEY

PERFORMANCE

Price when reviewed

£139 inc VAT

The 23in AOC i2352Vh is a 1920x1080-pixel IPS monitor that’s within reach of those on a tight budget. To achieve the £139 price tag, AOC has omitted frills such as a height-adjustable stand and a USB hub. See also: Group test: what's the best display?

The built-in speakers are usable for email notifications and the odd YouTube video, but for anything else you’ll want to plug in a pair of headphones to the AOC’s 3.5mm jack.

AOC’s i2352Vh won’t win any style awards, with its plain black finish and matt screen. We prefer its hardware buttons running along the bottom edge of the bezel to the touch-sensitive alternatives seen elsewhere, but the power button is situated too closely to the menu button. Usefully, the display’s power supply is integrated.

Plenty of options can be tweaked, but we’d rather see specific figures for colour temperature and gamma than the meaningless ‘Warm’, ‘Cool’, ‘Gamma1’, ‘Gamma2’ and ‘Gamma3’ settings. AOC bundles a Windows-only utility for configuration.

Despite its low price, AOC has managed to squeeze in an IPS panel to the specification. This screen produces an excellent image that puts TN technology to shame. A small amount of calibration was required out of the box, but colours were reasonably good. We measured 77 percent of the NTSC gamut and 85 percent of sRGB.

As expected from IPS tech, viewing angles are also good – AOC states 178 degrees, both vertical and horizontal.

AOC claims a staggering dynamic contrast ratio of 20,000,000:1, yet the actual measurement is lower than many more expensive displays; in our tests, 737:1. Nevertheless, a fast response time of 5ms makes this screen well suited to gamers and video enthusiasts.

At maximum brightness, we recorded 35W power consumption. This fell to 21W when we lowered the brightness setting to 120cd/m2.

OUR VERDICT

The i2352Vh is a dream monitor for anyone who has a limited budget to work with but still needs great image quality for tasks that demand accurate colours, such as photo editing. Better IPS panels are available, but none can beat the AOC on value.